Zbigniew Brzezinski Quotes

The art of government is the art of negotiating and compromise.

Politics is not really different from marriage. You cannot get things done in your relationship if you tell your wife: Look, if you haven't made the bed and if you don't get the food on the table, I will go and just hire someone and you will become irrelevant. That is not how you make a marriage work.

Compromise has a negative connotation.

Politics is human beings; it's addition rather than subtraction.

Climbing has worked for me in a number of ways on Capitol Hill. I'm much more inclined to look at what people do, as opposed to what they say. Also, it's about working together - we're all on the rope together, and you don't get to cut the rope if you're not getting along with someone.

We have to find compromises. That's the way it is in Norway.

Relationships are negotiated and if you deal with ultimatums and authority all the time, then you're not going to get anywhere.

The Republicans are coming - make nice.

Politics is compromise.

We have the means and the capacity to deal with our problems, if only we can find the political will.

There are moderates in Israel. There are moderates in Iran, there are moderates in the Republican Party, moderates in the Democratic Party. What we need to do is we need link all of these moderates together and to figure out a way by which this particular coalition can speak to important issues to marginalize the voice of the extremists.

In politics, you must let the other person have your way.

I sure tried to help deliver compromise, consensus, bipartisanship.

Every combination of two or more human beings has both a useful aspect and a political aspect.

I believe any time that both parties are talking, it's a good thing.

If you look through history, all of the great work we've done in Congress has been around a table of compromise, when it comes to the most difficult problems.

Diplomacy is letting someone else have your way.

Bipartisanship is like marriage. It takes two to make it work. It only takes one to make it a failure. The President has been playing politics with foreign policy.

Compromises may not make great heroes, but they do make great democracies.

I'm a compromiser and a maneuverer. I try to get something. That's the way our system works.

Compromise, compromise and compromise.

If you can't get along with the head of the government with which you are working, you won't get anything done—nothing!

We cannot always do what is absolutely best. Those with whom we act, entertaining different views, have the power and the right of carrying them into practice

The two parties should be turning to each other rather than on each other.

We need a lot more respect in this country for compromise…. There is in compromise a lot of integrity, especially political integrity.